Spottedlaurel

The weather was looking ok, it was time to take the Sierra out for a test drive.
Even with the battery disconnected, the fuel gauge was showing that the tank was nearly full. Bearing in mind that I only put about 5 litres in when I first bought the Sierra, the gauge reading looked very wrong.

With the battery reconnected, the Pinto fired up first time and the exhaust spat out a mouthful of moisture. More on this later. 
Whilst walking out of the workshop, to move the E46 out of the way, I noticed that the brake lights were permanently on.

I quickly got changed, removed the bottom of the dashboard again to gain access to the brake pedal switch.

I removed the switch to check and clean it. It looked ok.

I refitted the switch and adjusted it to the correct position. Evidently, I must have disturbed the switch whilst fiddling with the pedal box yesterday.
All pre-flight checks done, it was time to set off. I got as far as my local Esso fuel station.

I managed to squeeze 5 litres of petrol into the tank before the filler neck was full. It looks like the gauge was showing an almost full tank because the tank was almost full. On the basis that the tank holds 60 litres and I've added about 10 litres since buying the Sierra, there must have been about 50 litres of fuel in the tank. At approx £1.50 per litre, that's a £75 gift. Thank you previous owner.
Before leaving the fuel station, I was approached by three people, who commented on how immaculate the Sierra is and who asked how old it is and how many miles it has done. How nice that the posh folk of Beaconsfield appreciate old Fords.
Approx 5 miles into my trip, I stopped off at a garden centre to check vital fluids and to give everything a once over. No problems to report. The pretty setting provided an opportunity for a couple of photos.



Back on the road, I headed for the A404. If you've ever watched Wheeler Dealers (the GB episodes), you will have seen Mike B towing or driving something along this famous* dual carriageway. 
Without any struggling, the Sierra got up to 60MPH.

I came off the A404 at the A4 junction and drove through Maidenhead, Cookham, Wooburn Green and towards home. I stopped off at Glory Park for a couple more photos.


I arrived back home almost exactly 20 miles later, as confirmed by the trip meter. This is good news, it means the trip meter and odometer are both reading just fine.

Ok, I've only driven the Sierra for 20 miles along local traffic free roads but my first thoughts are very positive.
Engine - I adjusted the idle speed at the garden centre, once the engine reached full operating temperature. Throughout the trip, the engine ran fine, quickly reached operating temperature and the needle didn't budge from the mid point. It pulled well from low revs, with no missing or spluttering. Nothing has leaked out, however there is still a whiff of paraffin / old engine oil / mucky residue from where I've been tinkering, which will need time to burn off. 
Gearbox - All gears go in and out just fine, synchros are strong. The gearbox is silent and I love the mechanical feel of the gear change.
Clutch - Biting point spot on. No dragging, no slipping, no juddering. Perfect.
Prop & Diff - Silent, no vibrations.
Steering - Noticeably heavy at parking speeds, otherwise works well and feels adequately light at speed. Steering wheel is on straight, no pulling, no issues.
Suspension - Smooth! No knocks, no bangs. Ride comfort is superb, on par with my W123. Handling is roly-poly, as expected. 
Brakes - Needed a bit of time to bed in, however once the pedal firmed up, they worked just fine. I tried a couple of emergency stops, no pulling, no issues.
Exhaust - Drill holes failed to allow any moisture to escape overnight and I could hear a significant blow from both silencers. Bollocks. Evidently, drilling holes in silencers is not a good idea. I will plug both holes with chemical metal and self-tapping screws this afternoon.
Radio - Played Greatest Hits Radio (105.8FM), including Popmaster at 10:30am. All six speakers work ok and the FM reception is better than expected, bearing in mind I live and drove the Sierra through The Chilterns.
Summary - I love it!
@N19 I am sure that I will find something to write about soon. There are a few more bodywork related issues that I want to attend to and I expect the forthcoming MoT test will reveal something wrong with the old Ford. 
 

Eight years ago today this turd landed at mine. Tomorrow I will apply for historic tax and, judging by the complete lack of progress on the Mini, proceed to use it over the next few months. 

Both the other cars in this photo since sold and scrapped, the house SSTC and and my lovely friend Emma has moved onto a better place. Then again she lived in Hemel, so a move to Strangeways would have been a positive move. 
Happy bASe day, fellow motorist. 

Blimey! I saw the Space Cruiser in Norfolk back in 2016:
 
Great to see it still about.
But, that Granada! Fantastic to see one without chrome arch trims, wheel embellisher rings etc. Such a clean design.

Nope, I didn't.

Well, it's been a turbulent couple of weeks.
This splashed down just when the £5 Mattel 5-packs dropped at Tesco, and I didn't know which direction to devote my energies.

But a very large box arrived from across the water, with some very lovely things within...

I'm an absolute swine for these Corgi Majors trucks, and I've been looking out for one of these Ford H-Series rigs for a while now.
Unsurprisingly, this is part of the reason why a big box was needed!
I did have most of a trailer at one point in the past, but not the matching truck - so I sold that on a few years back.

This one's clearly seen some action in its time, but is largely complete and will make a nice companion for the car transporter version I turned up at the market a few weeks ago.
Delighted with this!
From one of Corgi's biggest models to one of their smallest, then...

A very lovely Austin Mini in plain red, with just a few in-period stickers and Humbrol embellishments added by a previous owner.

Generally these show up with the A-pillars cracked or entirely missing, so one that's structurally perfect is unusual.

The floor seems to have been... undersealed?
Most peculiar. The outer surface of the wheels have also been dabbed in black - and these may be relatively easy to clean up and take back to their original finish.
But there's also something quite charming about this one just as it is, so I may leave it undisturbed.
I'm not normally much of a one for farming models, but this Lesney King Size Fordson Super Major is one I'll make an exception for.

There's a bit of the usual hub shrinkage here, but a drop of glue should keep things rolling.

It's simpler than the equivalent Corgi and Dinky offerings in its construction, with no steering or suspension, but nonetheless an appealing little toy.
And, to utilise that tow hook...

A couple of trailers - a Dinky flat version, and a Lone Star conveyor lifter

The Lone Star is actually in very good shape, and although the rubber belt has hardened a little over its 60-odd years, it still functions with some gentle encouragement and goes up and down on its 'hydraulic' rams.
Some recent-ish Hot Wheels will likely be joining the others in the toybox:

Mattel have been using some of these hot rod castings for a long time now.

I'm also interested in comparing the Mercury Cougar with the Matchbox version from around the same time.

Mazda RX7 is quite nice too.
Then there's the Matchbox - beginning with these early 70s releases.

I keep buying these Ford D-Series gritters and then selling them - so I intend to hang on to this one!
Setra coach is one that's generally eluded me for a long time - not that they're rare, but more that whenever I see one there's generally something I want even more alongside it.
The Superfast Miura is nicer than the one I currently have, so is an upgrade of sorts.

The Security Van is one I owned as a kid, though unwisely I managed to remove the plastic roof with a hammer and screwdriver (I think I wanted to see what was inside?) and it was never quite the same again...
The Rolamatics Badger in cola-cube metallic brown is one I generally disdained as 'made-up', but I've come round to these a lot more in recent years. This one is very tidy; most seem to suffer from terrible axle shonk but this is rolling well - and the little scanner on the roof's still spinning around too.
The Bomag road roller is another I never had, and will go with my other construction toys that I've been quietly acquiring in recent months.

I've always liked the long-running Mercury police car, and this is one of its later outings at the tail-end of the Lesney years (though it would reappear later still in the Roadblasters range under Universal, plus as a relatively uncommon Halley's Comet commemorative special release).
The Holden HX Ute is one of my all-time favourite Matchbox castings, and it'll not surprise you that I've a few of these now. This red version is very clean with the sticker intact, and may even receive a pair of motorbikes to go on the back for display purposes...
I had the military Jeep as a kid too, probably from a jumble sale, but it was missing its windshield as well as the cannon to the rear. This one's missing its weapons but does have the windshield, so I'm pleased.

The Volvo FL lorry was one which excited me quite a lot as a kid, as it seemed very modern and detailed plus it was big. I'm not sure if I have any of my childhood examples remaining, but if not this'll be a good one to fill the gaps.
The silver-grey Pontiac Firebird has good paint, though some mild crush damage to the windscreen surround that I've mostly straightened out, and a missing glazing unit. 
The black version alongside was a bonus car thrown in by Dan, and I'm 99% sure it originally came from me via the market! I think it's an ex-Frosties promo with the 'tiger stripes' removed, and may yield a glazing unit for the silver car...

The Mack CH500 tractor unit is another one I used to have from new, and I remember being surprised to find it boxed individually as part of the mainline range, rather than in a Convoy pack with a trailer - I now know (through dedicated study of catalogues) that Matchbox packaged most of their truck units as regular mainlines, such as the Kenworth Aerocab and Peterbilt, but somehow this had passed me over at the time.
The Land Rover Ninety is another of my favourite '80s releases - I received a blue and white version one Christmas, and was super excited as I didn't know this casting existed at the time. It seemed very true-to-life, in terms of colour and detailing, and it lived on my model railway for a long time - but unfortunately the white plastic roof went yellow from the sunlight.
I've recently acquired a replacement blue version, and this red variant will make a nice companion piece.

The Chevrolet El Camino is a much more recent casting, dating from the early 2000s I believe. Compared to recent releases it looks a little blocky in its proportions, but it was good to see this modelled.
I believe this casting still gets wheeled out from time to time - most recently in the Coffee Cruisers IV 5-Pack set, wearing black paint and quite nice silver detail tampos.
Moving across into Mettoy products now...

A pair of Husky-era Guy bulk tippers, one carrying coal and the other hauling... cobbles? Potatoes?
I've often been a bit lukewarm towards Husky commercials, but these were too good to miss.

Likewise these two quarry tippers. I actually thought these were two versions of the same casting, but really they're totally different - the red and grey Husky with the remains of a plough is an Aveling Barford, while the (mildly incongruous) Whizzwheels is a Terex R-35, and the castings of both bodies and tippers have no commonality.
Sometimes it's good to clear up these misunderstandings.

As a kid, I owned the battered shell of one of these Whizzwheels S3 Land Rovers, but what became of the base or wheels is beyond me. It became a staple of my 'toy scrapyard'.
The metallic green on the right was the civilian example, while the matt green I believe originally came with a clip-on plastic rear section and military ambulance stickers.

I've never owned a BVRT Vita-Min before; when I was younger I saw them but simply assumed that Corgi's effort at modelling a Mini was somehow even worse than the Matchbox attempt, and shunned them accordingly.
I was embarrassingly old before I twigged it was specifically modelled on the heavily modified Minisprint conversion, and that was why the body lines looked nothing like a 'real Mini'.

Oops. This one has had some paint done, so I'll try to clean this up a little!
I've had a few examples of the Whizzwheels Le Mans Sprite pass through my hands before, but not in such good shape as this one.

I owned a fair few pale blue Renault R5 Turbos from the BP petrol promotion in the mid-1980s, but never had the dark blue Elf version.
At these low, low prices I couldn't resist.
The tipper also intrigued me - I remember having a cement mixer using this same chassis unit when I was very young, but the black glazing, lack of interior and seemingly generic casting led me to classify it as a low-grade toy, and so it never really featured in my play settings.
I only found out quite recently that it was based on a real GMC commercial vehicle (I think?), and wasn't a generic. So apologies are due (though if Corgi had troubled themselves to state that on the base, I may have felt differently).

The tipping mechanism's actually quite good, with a heavy diecast flap at the back so it's heavy enough to pivot and remain vertical; I sort of like this. 
Finishing up, there's this Minix Vauxhall Viva HA:

I used to be mad into Minix; I had quite a few at one point, including rarer releases like the Simca 1301 and Morris Landcrab.
A red Viva was one of the first things I ever bought off eBay, some twenty-odd years ago. I think I paid £5 for it, plus postage - and sent him a cheque in the post to pay for this.
Yup kids, the days before e-commerce was a thing.
When it arrived, the back bumper had an end corner missing, which the seller had unaccountably not mentioned in their description of it as 'excellent' and 'mint'.
Lots of lessons were learned.
I moved them all on a while back, but got a tug at the heartstrings when I saw this one looking a new home.
And hey, it is excellent.
Bit of a wildcard to finish with...

Normally I'm not much into biplanes, or indeed planes in general, but this little Nieuport 101-3 appealed for some reason.

I don't know who it's made by but I don't think it's very old; it's just cheaply made, using diecast and tinplate components that are assembled fairly crudely.

The paper stickers are falling off, and it could definitely benefit from a trip around the sink, but I kinda like it.
And that's kinda that...

Oh, except for the knackered white metal Rover P6 which I forgot about and found at the bottom of the box a few days later, and haven't yet photographed!
All thanks to @danthecapriman for yet another exceeding fine selection at very moderate prices!
Which reminds me, I must really get some of my surplus stuff photographed and offered up here...

And so the great game of pass-the-tat-parcel continues...
Happy Easter, kids.

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

Just to finish off on Saturday's adventures, then...

The orange Hot Wheels Honda Civic custom came from Asda; I don't have that one, and £1.90 seemed not too unreasonable.
The longcard Matchbox Chevy Nova - a 2020 release which seemed to bypass UK retailers, but has been dribbling through more recently as a grey import - was acquired at the Smithfield model shop, as was the 2024 version of the '66 Dodge Charger in dark green, which I like much more than the silver and orange 70th Anniversary release from last year.
Of course, he wrote the price in marker pen on the packaging, as is his wont.

But it doesn't bother me so much on these as it does on 40-year-old Corgis.
I also picked up a not-bad Lesney Mercury Commuter with regular wheels from the loose selection for £2, and a very tidy My First Matchbox Rover Sterling for a quid.

He actually had a fair amount of ok Lesney stuff this time round at similar pricing - yet also recent Hot Wheels priced at £3 or £4, loose.
In some cases, he still had carded examples of the same models hanging over on the other side of the shop for only £2.
Like I say, bewildering and unpredictable.
I could have spent more, but only had a limited amount of cash on me.
The Superfast Cortina has been discussed, but for me the star of yesterday's show was this:

A minty US release of the MB22 Cavalier GSi, acquired from the collectables shop in Holywood. 
This is why I was uncharacteristically willing to forego the pretty good example I'd bagsied on Friday night from the @bunglebus sales thread.
Funny, I'd been thinking about this model earlier too, because the Smithfield shop used to have a bunch of these 1980s US issues in a case for only a fiver - including a Mk3 Cavalier.
Having stared at it for years, one day I went in to buy it  - only to find it was just sold. Regrets, hey?
So when I found this alongside a bunch of other boxed Lesneys from the 1970s and 80s on a shelf in the NO PHOTOGRAPHY PLEASE shop, I felt a strong yearning.
It wasn't amazingly cheap, but I felt it was a fair price for what it is.

More so than the other Matchbox, which on closer inspection turned out to often be rather less than mint, and housed in reproduction boxes.
I dunno about you, but I don't think that £20 is a particularly reasonable price for a chipped Fiat 131 Abarth in a repro box.
He also had a carry-case of fairly playworn Corgi Juniors and Matchbox Superfasts which were priced at £4 each, though he generously offered to 'do me a deal' on the entire box.
It's a weird shop.
But I think I did ok out of it.
So after that, it was time to head back down the road to IKEA, and roundly tear the arse out of their free coffee refills policy in the cafe while typing some of this up, as I awaited my 'come and collect your shiz' text.

Which eventually came through at 1.55pm.
Ah well. I've had worse days...

You did well with those Tim. That Cavalier is absolutely lovely and well worth the price I’d say!
 
Me or the squirrel!?!?😆

Likes the smell of the glue and paint fumes?!

Used the Carina E for some daily driver duties this week, found a 1996 friend:
It did well, apart from an unexpected FTP - went to a work meeting, came out and it wouldn't start. I'd left the lights on, silly boy. Luckily one of the friendly engineers there had a jump pack.
Ideally I should get the door switch for the interior lights working again, then I might have had a lights-on warning chime....
Although Mrs SL prefers the Lexus RX in terms of comfort she did concede that the radio in the Carina E sounds better to her. I recall @Alan Prost saying similar in comparison to his other half's more modern MINI.
In other fleet news, poor planning on my part means that all three of the other cars are going into garages for work this month. RX is going to the main dealer for a scheduled service (major one, so that won't be cheap), and I have both the LS400 and Laurel booked-in for service/MoTs on consecutive days next week......

Likes the smell of the glue and paint fumes?!

some old stuff I’ve seen over the last year or so in Gibraltar.  

Apologies for the dreadful photos but.....

Three Nissan Prairies!

Right then... as we know, one does not simply 'come home from IKEA' - there's then a few hours of banging together fibreboard cuboids and trying to get them securely attached to the wall in passably uniform fashion before it's possible to even think about little toy cars.
But, y'know, it looks ok, I reckon.

So then, Cash Converters?
Yeah, it's always sad when store managers get hooked on crack, and set about them with the price gun.

These are largely the same 2022 and 2023 selection of Hot Wheels and Matchbox that can still be found for between £1.49 and £2.50 in many stores a mere stone's throw from this very branch - but for some mysterious reason they're priced at £4 here.
And the rest.

Poundstretcher are still doing these green longcard Deltas for £2.50. There's a branch of Poundstretcher literally a two minute walk down Castle St from Cash Converters.
So a tenner? Nah.
I'd sooner have this piece of 1980s-looking plastic tat, for the same money.

With no IKEA notification yet, I hobbled back to the car and on down the road to Holywood.
Stewart Millar did us proud with some nifty Matchbox back in January, but alas no more. A quick squizz indicated no new arrivals, though I did briefly agonise over another DeLorean.
But - there's a lot of charity shops in Holywood High Street. And I'd been lucky with the Cortina earlier.
Most had nothing of interest, but some surprised me.

In amongst the usual Lledo dross I was surprised to see this Corgi Warner & Swasey telescopic crane.
Even at £5, I was moderately tempted - but missing legs and the winding mechanism, plus some axle shonk, cooled my ardour somewhat.
But moving on down the High Street suddenly revealed these beauties, in an animal charity shop.

Holy moly.
Some pristine early blue-box Corgis (the Velox being a rarer mechanical version), early Lesneys, and a Dinky Austin Somerset (with the box missing a flap) were enough to get me in a flap.

Although the presence of the Model of Yesteryear gave me some pause about whether whoever put them in the case actually knew what they were doing.
But there were no prices on them.
And no-one in the shop seemed to know what price they were.
Although the cabinet did contain other things that were a bit spendy. Not just the £30 crystal ashtray in front of the Vauxhall.
Like a tired-looking Kodak Box Brownie priced at £110. And a set of chess pieces for £200, with a sign saying that the same set was on Etsy for £400.
These were not particularly good signs, literally or metaphorically.
Eventually, at the point they were going to phone the manager to see if she knew what price they were, I just smiled beatifically and said it was ok, not to worry.
These weren't going to be a tenner a pop or anything. They were valuable, deservedly so, and I highly doubted my pockets would be deep enough once the asking was revealed. Why torture myself?
So off I went, round to the sort-of antiques and collectibles shop. You know the one. The one selling absolute tripe for £££.
But, weirdly, today it wasn't all rubbish. Not quite, anyway.
Ok, time to reveal.

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

Just got my first Spot-On! Charity shop find, far from perfect, but sub-£10.....

Hopefully I'm not having to think about stripping paint today, just final detailing of the Fairlady ZG build:

I'm at home in the daylight, it's a Bank Holiday and I want a day off from work and 'stuff', so it's time to get on with foiling the window trims. With a new blade in the knife, Tamiya mini swab for burnishing and some patience......

Not a job I look forward to, but it is satisfying once done. Arguably it shouldn't be a full chrome trim, more of an insert within black rubber, but that wouldn't be easy on this kit. Tamiya have engineered their recent version of the same car so it can be done properly. I might paint black on the vertical part down to the glass, or it maybe just not bother - to the naked eye, and not when viewed through the lens, it looks OK.
I forgot abut painting the rear panel when I did the arch flares the other weekend, so I had more masking and spraying to do. With the lights fitted it's starting to come together. I'm hoping to complete it this weekend, then I can start Tamiya's version which I'm going to fit with a Nissan RB engine.

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

Just got my first Spot-On! Charity shop find, far from perfect, but sub-£10.....

While we wait for DC to get back, here's my selection after a barren week in the supermarkets I got a bit from one or two places this morning:


Small stuff. The Matchbox Truck was one of the last things left from the dairy-themed batch of diecasts at the charity shop. Loose HWs were £3 for a bag at secondhand shop, it had the most Japanese content. Cadillac from the Co-Op.

Big stuff. Rancho has the attractive 4-spoke wheels. Apart from the Humber these were £1-£1.50 each.
And popping my Spot-On cherry:

 

 

 

 

The colour appears to be original, so did it start life as this one? https://diecastgems.com/product/spot-on-toys-306-humber-super-snipe/

Shame about the bumper and glass damage, but it's still quite an appealing thing (especially for what I paid for it).

Humber Super Snipe estate. Photos to come.

Just got my first Spot-On! Charity shop find, far from perfect, but sub-£10.....